If Truth Be Told: A Monk's Memoir

by Om Swami

  When you first start meditating, it is an act of the conscious mind and you have to make an effort to meditate. Once you start to master it, however, it takes on a new form. From an act, it becomes a state—a state of the subconscious mind. And, when you persist, it changes once again. No longer an act or a state, meditation becomes a phenomenon: it happens to you.

  In the beginning, I struggled to keep my mind from wandering. Over time, it went to the other extreme. I had to make an effort to talk or think of something other than Mother Divine. Like an insect flying towards the light, my mind glided towards her constantly. I was not doing this as a conscious act anymore; it was happening to me. I was always dizzy, and felt I was on a perpetual high. There are no words that can really define that euphoric state, but imagine listening to a lovely and soothing sound continuously. After a while, you become one with that sound.

  On 1 January 2011, I took a vow of truth. I decided that I would not tell a lie, no matter what. Till my last breath. It isn't easy to always speak the truth living in this world because truth can be painful, but it's a virtue and a discipline any sincere seeker must practise. Four days later, I was about to embark on a 150-day sadhana, and it would be the most important one of my life. This was the sadhana I had prepared myself for all these years. I was going to meditate on the quintessential mantra of Mother Divine, and I decided that the same mouth that uttered the divine name should not pollute itself by telling a lie. It was my commitment to God and to myself.

  For the upcoming sadhana, I took out a piece of paper and drew a Sri Chakra yantra on it. As a Sri Vidya practitioner, I worshipped the Mother in the form of Goddess Maha Tripurasundari, one of the ten tantric Mahavidyas. This worship has three aspects: the yantra; the mantra of the Goddess; and sahasranama, her thousand names. Just as a child learning to swim may need floaters in the beginning, the tradition of Sri Vidya recommends using external aids like the Sri Yantra before turning completely inward, where the adept can then meditate solely on Goddess.

  The word ‘tri’ means three and ‘pura’ means states. This goddess governs the three states of our consciousness. These three states are jagrat, wakeful; svapana, dreaming; and sushupta, resting or sleeping. These states find a resonance in multiple contexts. For instance, they refer to the three modes of material nature: sattva, the mode of goodness; rajas, the mode of passion; and tamas, the mode of ignorance. Further, ‘tripura’ relates to the three physical humours of the body: vata, wind; pitta, bile; and kapha, mucus. There are also three states of human existence: childhood, youth and old age. At the macro level, you have the three worlds: nether world, earth and heaven. At a micro level, it also pertains to the three states of mind: positive, negative and neutral. Ultimately, to go beyond all the states, the seeker must remain centred across all states, under all circumstances, firmly established in his or her devotion.

  Sri Yantra is a geometrical representation of the energy field created by meditating on Mother Divine’s form, and is a powerful aid in meditation. Within the Sri Yantra, more than 171 forms of energies are invoked before commencing the main meditation on the Goddess’s mantra, which is chanted mentally. These energies elevate the seeker's state of mind and help it remain centred during and after the meditation so he or she can remain focused on the thoughts of Mother Divine.

  Sahasranama, one thousand names, are used to call upon the Goddess in reverence and devotion. The idea behind chanting her thousand names is to cry out for her the way a child does for its mother; it is to become a child. Young children are free from negative emotions like hatred, jealousy and malice—great obstacles for a devotee.

  So, the Sri Yantra covers the visual and the energy aspect, the mantra is for the mental aspect and sahasranama is for devotion. When you are visually meditating on the Sri Yantra, when you are mentally meditating on the Goddess’s mantra, when you are verbally chanting her names, you're practically living in her all the time. This is a state a seeker must reach to experience complete and unwavering oneness with God. I meditated on Mother Divine in this way for nearly twenty hours each day. Once you immerse yourself completely, there comes a time when you not only see the Divine but merge in the Divine, you attain complete union with God.

  In my devotion, I had seen God as a being, a person almost, because it made it easier to surrender to a personalized form. Now, my yogic mind was beginning to see God as the essence of everything: the fragrance of the flower, the heat of fire, the chill in ice, the venom in a snake. The ultimate test of my devotion and my focus, though, was to see a manifestation of that essence. I wanted my concentrated thought to manifest before my eyes.

  My ability to sit unmoving for exceptionally long periods in meditation improved significantly with time. There came a stage when I stopped moving my head or my eyes to find out what the rats were doing on my lap or around me. From that stillness would gush forth the greatest fountain of bliss I had known. Perfecting the gaze is one of the subtle but promising signs of progress in meditation because when you are meditating deeply, even a slight movement of the eyeball is enough to bring your awareness back to the body, and it breaks the concentration.

  My quiet and concentrated mind gave birth to an unusual phenomenon. I realized I could shut down my heartbeat at will. I didn't do any yoga, I wasn't focusing on it, it just happened naturally as a result of my extremely powerful meditations. I gained significant control over the involuntary functions of my body including the regulation of blood pressure, body temperature and pulse rate.

  My consciousness travelled beyond my body and explored other planes of existence. However, I knew well that such experiences of astral travel could simply be a state of mind rather than any actual travel; the boundaries are blurred when you move through various states of consciousnesses. No doubt these attainments made me feel I was progressing, particularly because I was able to reproduce my experiences at different times of day. This gave me the confidence that there was cause-and-effect at work here, a scientific basis, rather than my imagination playing tricks on me. At the same time, I knew that these occurrences were distractions, and only the by-products of the meditation; they were not my goal.

  As my sadhana continued, I was startled to discover powerful sensations building in my head. I did not take the idea of chakras very seriously, and had stopped meditating on chakras years ago. Sensations emerged in those psychoneurotic plexuses on their own, and were strongest in my forehead and head.

  I don't know of any word in any language that could possibly describe these sensations. How do you tell someone what a rose smells like? The only way to find out is to smell one. There was no pain or heaviness, only waves of deep bliss. I thought these sensations would go away but they didn’t; in fact, I still experience them at all time.

  I had never read about this sort of experience anywhere. One Buddhist text had mentioned these sensations briefly, but my yogic scriptures were quiet about it. What was happening to me? What did these sensations mean? I had no clue. But, despite all the powerful experiences I was having, I knew I could not get attached and had to press on with my sadhana. I still hadn't felt the Divine embrace, I was still desperate, I was still incomplete. I was still just me.

  14

  The Realization

  Despite the intensity and concentration with which I meditated, and the desperation in my heart, I still hadn't seen a manifestation of the Divine. I didn't even know if the improvement in the meditation was any indication of my progress. I was already meditating to the maximum extent possible. I decided I had to be patient until the completion of my sadhana. On 13 February 2011, exactly forty days since I had started meditating on Mother Divine with the Sri Yantra and the mantra, something completely unexpected happened.

  Just a few days earlier, I'd changed my routine and started meditating from 9 p.m. until 10 a.m. Around 5 a.m., while I was meditating with full awareness, a form appeared a few feet away from me. It was partially turned away from me.

  In the past two decades, I
had done tantric sadhanas of various devis, yoginis, yakshinis, apsaras, which were all lower energies of Mother Divine. At times, I had seen celestial forms, but these visions had been too short-lived to make any sense to me; at other times, I had encountered figures in dreams. This time, since I was awake, I thought I was seeing a celestial form like the previous times, and that it would disappear soon. Either way, I considered this a distraction that had appeared to disrupt my meditation.

  With a firmer resolution and stronger equanimity, I brought my attention back to my meditation. The form didn't disappear; it continued to face the wall. Suddenly, it began moving its hands in a rhythmic way—now one hand moved and then the other, now the right arm swayed and then the left one swayed. Not wanting to get distracted by the hypnotic movements of the hands, I focused my attention on the mantra.

  The form sat on the floor and faced me. I still didn't look at it properly. I was in deep absorption and determined to ignore this being. 'Aayo ji, aayo ji, Sarvanand Baba, aayo ji,’ (Come here, come here, O Sarvananda, come here), a most mellifluous feminine voice called out to me.

  Despite the fact that she had used the name Baba had given me, I took no heed and persisted with my meditation. A few moments later, she repeated the call. Thinking it was a nitya, female celestial being, one of the companion energies of Mother Divine, I continued to pay no attention. After calling my name for the third time, she turned towards me and looked at me directly. I couldn't disregard her any more. After all, she knew the name I rarely used or disclosed, and she was persistent. If this was an undesirable being or if she had come to just bless me, she would have disappeared by now; instead, this figure was sitting on the floor, cross-legged, just the way a mother sits with a child.

  I did something I had never done before: I decided to get up during my meditation. It was bitterly cold, and I was wearing woollen socks. I quickly took off my socks so that I could greet the manifestation barefoot. There was not enough space to do a full-length prostration. Going past the Sri Yantra, I lay somewhat diagonally over the cold fire pit and offered my obeisance. ‘I'm Sarvananda,’ I said, and looked up.

  Like wax that cannot withstand the heat, like darkness that disappears into light, I lost myself. What could I, a tiny drop, have known about the ocean? How could have I imagined that I would be looking into the effulgent eyes of the Creator, the Empress? Watching me was the one I had waited for my entire life. She had come.

  I took in her fair face, the brilliance of her eyes, her small nose and full lips, the hair that flowed down to the ground like a black river. Her radiance was unbearable and I could not endure the sight of her. Just before I collapsed, she lifted me swiftly but gently, and raised me above her head, as if I were a mere toy. I put my arms around her neck. When I glanced down at her, her flashing eyes annihilated every molecule of my existence as I had known it. I hid my face in her hair and entered a different world: it was an unending abyss as dark as her eyes were bright. Taking me through unimaginable spaces in the cosmos, she showed me the nature of duality, and how darkness and light, joy and sorrow, were inseparable. With a soft jerk of her arms, she made me tilt my head back, and now she was looking up at me. A myriad sentiments pushed me into an inexplicable state of consciousness. I hid my face in her hair again.

  At my bidding, and because of my unrelenting and persistent cries, she had come; yet, now that she had, what did I have to offer her? Nothing. She, the owner of the Universe, sat on an uneven, dirty floor in a broken hut in the wilderness. Someone as magnificent as her should have been on her celestial throne. I didn’t know how to welcome her, and wondered how a beggar was to offer hospitality to a queen. I had nothing pure enough to offer her. My heart, my body, my mind were all impure. I had no naivedyam, food offered with reverence. I did not even have flowers, but I wanted to give her something.

  What could be purer than her own name, I thought. A eulogy to Mother Divine sprang out of me, gushing forth from the deepest recess of my heart. I raised my head, only just, and sang out as loud as I could. She gently swayed me back and forth one more time, and gave me the most enigmatic smile full of compassion, love and mercy. She then put me down and disappeared. She was everything I ever wanted, all that I had ever known.

  My watch read 5:08 a.m. I prayed loudly and cried heartily; I even laughed. For a while, I alternated between praying, crying and laughing. Gradually, I realized where I was and what had just occurred. To the non-believer or to the rest of the world, my experience may be dismissed as a hallucination or the product of a schizoid mind. And that’s perfectly fine because, if someone had told me about such a thing earlier, I wouldn't have believed it either. There may be an imagination vivid enough to capture my experience but there are certainly no words apt enough to describe what I saw.

  There was no doubt that what I had experienced was as real as the mountains, the hut, the floor I sat on, my very breath. The words, the touch, the play were all genuine, but I had no proof. Only someone who could enter my state of being could see my reality. In that one vision, I had seen the Primordial Principle, the Creative Energy.

  What I had come to seek, I had found. But I wasn’t ready to leave just yet. I wanted to fulfil my vow of spending a certain period of time there and honour the Mother’s mantra as well as the other divine energies who are worshipped as part of the tantric sadhana I was practising. Crucially, I needed to learn to live with the bliss that I had stepped into, or found within. I wanted to pray for the welfare of all sentient beings, and pay homage to the lineage of siddhas I was a part of.

  I began to experience an extraordinary bliss, and this was constant. But, at the same time, I was always dizzy. Sometimes, I felt as if someone was tugging at a point inside my brain; at other times, I got the feeling my forehead was being massaged. Daily functions such as walking, eating, talking to Pradeep and listening to his stories, became difficult. I had to learn how to absorb the powerful energies flowing through me. Thus I decided to enter strict solitude for a hundred days. I needed this time to absorb the vision.

  I informed Pradeep about my plan and his meticulous management made it possible. I changed my routine and began meditating from 7 p.m. until 4 a.m. If, once or twice a month, the villagers passed this way for hay, Pradeep would tell them to keep absolutely quiet. They maintained both distance and silence. During this period, I neither met nor saw anyone. Pradeep would wake up at 1 a.m., take a bath, say his prayers and prepare my meal before 4 a.m. He would come to the little temple near my hut, ring a bell and hide behind the temple wall so that we did not see each other.

  I would then step out and go to his hut for my meal. Eating would take me nearly an hour because it was nothing short of a ritual for me. It was an opportunity to express my gratitude to Mother Nature, to the farmers who produced the grain and to Pradeep who cooked it. The digestive fire in the stomach is called vaishvanara. I would offer every bite to this fire, akin to the fire offering in a yajna. I still do, for that matter.

  While I was gone, Pradeep would wait for me quietly or refill the water bucket in my hut. He’d also fix the tarpaulin on the roof in case a storm had blown it about at night. If I needed to communicate something, I wrote a note and left it in his hut.

  Towards the end of March, I felt a shooting pain near my kidney. I was startled because I had already perfected my posture and wasn’t expecting any more pains. I'd already been through excruciating knee pains, severe backaches, a tired body and aching arms and shoulders. What was this new pain? The middle plank of my bed had completely sunk, making it an uneven and unsuitable surface to sit on; perhaps my posture was the cause of the pain. I placed my pillow on the plank but this didn’t help. I took an hour out of my sleep time and did some yoga asanas to stretch my body; this alleviated the pain just a little. It was becoming impossible for me to sit still for hours at a time, which is what I needed to do. I wasn't going to give up on my 150-day meditation though; I had to get rid of this pain.

  Reflecting on the pain,
it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen the sun for nearly two-and- a-half months. I took my morning meals when it was still dark. I used to step out occasionally during the day, but I hadn’t been out at all in the sunlight for nearly ten weeks now. I had been living in an extremely cold hut and didn’t use a fire to warm myself. The next day, instead of yoga, I spread a mat and sat outside with my back towards the sun. That night the pain subsided to a large extent. I repeated the process for the next few days and the pain disappeared. I would never know what really caused it, but sitting in the sun relieved it.

  Enjoying the sweetness of solitude, diving deep into the ocean of a still mind, I passed my days in deep meditation and crystal-clear awareness. I was acutely aware of everything around me: the sounds of hornets and wasps, a spider crawling on the wall, every drop of rain that fell. Any thought that emerged in my mind would not go unnoticed. This was truly an extraordinary level of awareness.

  My intuitive faculties entered a new dimension. No matter what question I thought of, an inner voice gave me the answer. One day, during meditation, the same inner voice instructed me to visit Kamakhya Temple. I would get sarvoch tantric diksha, the highest tantric initiation there, it said. I was reminded of Bhairavi Ma who had foretold this in Badrinath. I decided to visit Kamakhya after the completion of my sadhana. But, right now, I simply lived in the present moment. I was a boat sailing in an ocean of bliss; why, I was the ocean itself.

  The silence within me was beyond description. Just as you churn milk and it turns into butter, and that butter can never become milk again, my mind had reached an irreversible state of peace and joy. I felt that to remain unaffected, no matter what the circumstances, to be unmoved by someone’s birth, death, acceptance, rejection, praise or criticism—this sense of dispassion and detachment was arising from within me, without any effort.